At meeting with Obama envoy, Sunni leaders paint bleak picture of U.S.-backed campaign

Warmly greeting a group of Sunni leaders led by Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the president of the Iraqi Awakening Council, Allen reminisced last week about the critical help the leaders had provided the U.S. military eight years ago in ridding Anbar province of al-Qaida insurgents.

Allen even joked about returning to Anbar — and investing in local real estate. “I want to go back and buy a house there,” he told the group, according to one of the Iraqis present.

But hours later, Abu Risha and Allen got a rude jolt. IS fighters, they learned, had just stormed the compound of Abu Risha and his family, overrunning security forces, blowing up homes and the mosque.

“This was a message to the United States — that you cannot protect anyone. … We are able to reach anywhere,” Abu Risha told Yahoo News.

Although it got little attention in the U.S. media, the brazen assault on the home of a once key U.S. ally in Iraq alarmed officials in Washington and stepped on a central message in Obama’s State of the Union address the next day: that U.S.-led airstrikes are “stopping ISIL’s advance.” (ISIL, which stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and the the Levant, is another name for IS.)

In the hours after the attack, Allen stayed in close touch with Abu Risha and emailed with him about “this vicious attack,” a State Department official told Yahoo News.

Allen and other U.S. officials — including Vice President Joe Biden in a later meeting at the White House — expressed personal condolences. “The attack only proves once again that ISIL is an enemy of all Iraqis, regardless of sect or background,” the official said in an email.

CLICK IMAGE for slideshow: Smoke rises from the Syrian city of Kobani following an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition, …

But according to Abu Risha and his fellow visiting Sunni leaders from Anbar — as well as some U.S. counterterrorism experts — the attack also underscores the limits of U.S. strategy at a time when the president is asking Congress to enact a new authorization for the use of military force against IS, essentially codifying another U.S. war in the region.

Despite a steady barrage of coalition airstrikes that have helped the Kurdish peshmerga regain some territory (including retaking the Syrian border town of Kobani this week), IS has solidified its control in Anbar, setting up a ministate that now controls 85 percent of the province, according to Abu Risha and Sohaib Al-Rawi, the governor of Anbar, who accompanied Abu Risha on the trip to Washington.

Anbar is of major strategic and symbolic importance in the war against IS. It is Iraq’s largest province, covering a huge swath of the country’s west, and was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of the Iraq War. An estimated 1,332 Americans have died there.

But in their meetings with U.S. officials, including Biden, over the past week, and in exclusive interviews with Yahoo News, the visiting Iraqis delivered a bleak message about the state of the conflict in Anbar.

The Islamist insurgency is a truly global enterprise. Foreign fighters are continuing to pour into the province — from 45 countries, including Russia, France, Great Britain and other European nations, they said. Iraqi security forces recently captured two of the IS recruits — one from Egypt and another from China — and learned that they had been trained as snipers by Italians at an IS training camp in Syria, Abu Risha said.

The humanitarian toll on the province has been disastrous, according to the visiting Iraqis. Much of the province’s infrastructure — including 45 bridges and 250 schools — has been destroyed, they said. More than 750,000 people have been displaced. The price of food has skyrocketed and is now five times what it was when the IS militants began their onslaught in Anbar early last year. Abu Rusha, Al-Rawi and other Sunni leaders from the Awakening have now been forced to spend most of their time outside of Anbar, in Baghdad or Jordan.

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A woman reacts at the site of a car bomb attack in Baghdad, western Anbar province, on Oct. 15, 2014. (Ahmed S …

The airstrikes “have not stopped their advance,” said Abu Risha. “They have been able to gain more territory.”

(A senior U.S. official told reporters last week, in advance of a meeting in London between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, that the strikes “have taken off the battlefield thousands of [ISIL] fighters.”)

In their meetings at the White House and at the State Department, the Anbar chiefs pressed the case for a sharp increase in U.S. military support — weapons for the Iraqi army, more drones to kill the incoming flow of foreign fighters and, most problematic, the return of U.S. ground troops. Abu Risha said that as much as one U.S. Army division and two U.S. Marine brigades may be needed to dislodge IS in Anbar. When they have raised the issue of ground troops, according to sources present, the U.S. officials have listened in silence — knowing full well that Obama has ruled out the return of “boots on the ground.”

But Abu Risha’s response was to recall the visit he had with Obama when the then candidate came to Anbar during the 2008 presidential campaign — and honored the role that the Sunnis of the Awakening played in the bloody battles that rolled back the insurgents. The meeting that summer took place in Ramadi, Anbar’s capital, where Obama sat in an ornate gold-plated chair with an Iraqi flag draped behind him. “Obama said when he visited with us, ‘We will not turn our back on you and we will not forget your sacrifices,’” Abu Risha said.

“This is my message: We are asking the president to fulfill his promise.”

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece's new prime minister has lashed out against the European Union even before his new radical left government was sworn in.

Alexis Tsipras' office said Greece has expressed displeasure over Tuesday's joint declaration by EU leaders threatening fresh sanctions against Russia over Ukraine.

In a statement released just before his government was sworn in, Tsipras' office said Greece had not been consulted on the declaration, and didn't consent to its content.

The rare joint declaration was triggered by Moscow's perceived "growing support" for separatists in eastern Ukraine during intensified fighting over the past days.

The EU has imposed economic and political sanctions on Moscow and officials linked with last year's annexation of Ukraine's southern Crimea peninsula.

New Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said Greece is involved in "tough negotiations" over the possibility of fresh sanctions on Russia. He said some countries had "breached the EU rules, and tried to present us with a fait accompli before the new government had even been sworn in."

"This ... will not be accepted," Kotzias said, during a ministry handover ceremony with outgoing foreign minister Evangelos Venizelos. "Whoever thinks that, in the name of its debt, Greek will give up its sovereignty and its active contribution to European policies is mistaken."

Tsipras took office Monday, a day after his election victory on an anti-austerity platform.

Jerusalem (AFP) - At least two rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday prompting Israeli forces to return fire, the army said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Israeli side.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later warned that Israel was "ready to respond with force" to any attack.

Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner said the Syrian fire was "intentional, not spillover from the Syrian civil war" as has sometimes been the case in the past.

In September the army fired at a Syrian military position in response to what it said was stray fire from fighting between soldiers and Islamist rebels close to the armistice line on the Golan.

There has been repeated fire across the ceasefire line since the uprising in Syria erupted in March 2011, not all of it stray.

In August, five rockets fired from Syria hit the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights and, in July, Israel shelled Syrian army positions when a rocket struck its territory.

Tensions have soared along the ceasefire line since a January 18 air strike attributed to Israel killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general near Quneitra on the Syrian-held side of the strategic plateau.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said Friday that Israel was prepared for any retaliation by Lebanon's Hezbollah, which is operating in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad.

"Israel will hold responsible governments, regimes and organisations on the other side of our northern borders over any violation of Israel's sovereignty, or an attack on soldiers or civilians," he said during a tour of the Golan and the nearby border with Lebanon.

Israel has deployed its Iron Dome missile defence system in the north, where local media say it is amassing tanks and infantry reinforcements.

The army said that after Tuesday's rocket attack it evacuated visitors from the Mount Hermon ski resort near the armistice line and security sources said farmers were told to leave their fields and go into bomb shelters.

Police said they had set up roadblocks to stop civilians entering the area.

Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and annexed it in 1981 in a move never recognised by the international community.

Syria and Israel are still officially in a state of war.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats on Tuesday put the brakes on new Iran sanctions legislation, ending for now a looming showdown between Congress and President Barack Obama over negotiations to prevent Tehran from having the capability to make a nuclear weapon.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., a leading proponent of the legislation, says he remains skeptical a deal will materialize, but says he and nine other Democrats now won't push the bill at least until the end of March.

Menendez' concession to the White House is good news for Obama, who has threatened to veto any new sanctions legislation. At the same time, supporters of the bill say the letter signals the White House that Menendez and his Democratic colleagues do support the legislation and are willing to vote for new sanctions if Iran doesn't reach an agreement with the U.S. and its international partners.

Republicans could still move ahead on the bill, but without Democratic support, Congress would not have the votes needed to override an Obama veto.

The White House, British Prime Minister David Cameron and other international leaders have been lobbying U.S. lawmakers hard, arguing that if new sanctions legislation were passed, Iran could walk away from the talks and say the U.S. was negotiating in bad faith. Obama said the willingness of America's international partners to enforce existing sanctions against Iran also would wane.

Last week, House Speaker John Boehner fueled the rising friction with the White House by announcing that he had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a staunch opponent of Iran, to stand before Congress March 3 and push for new sanctions. The announcement caught the administration off-guard and Obama says he will not be meeting with Netanyahu when he visits Washington.

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Senate Banking Committee member Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., center, sitting next to Sen. Jon Teste …

Boehner defended his decision again on Tuesday, saying the House is an equal branch of government and had the right to invite the Israeli leader to "talk to the members of Congress about the serious threat that Iran poses and the serious threat of radical Islam."

Time could be running out to reach a deal with Iran, which says its nuclear program is peaceful and exists only to produce energy for civilian use. Talks have been extended until July, with the goal of reaching a framework for a deal by the end of March.

Menendez, who drafted bipartisan legislation with Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., said at a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing that he and his Democratic colleagues had sent a letter to Obama saying they won't support passage of the bill until after March 24 — the date when a framework for a final deal is to be done.

"The legislation that Sen. Kirk and I have drafted would signal to the Iranian regime that there will be more consequences if they choose not to reach a final deal," Menendez said. "This morning, however, many of my Democratic colleagues and I sent a letter to the president, telling him that we will not support passage of the Kirk-Menendez bill on the Senate floor until after March 24 and only if there is no political framework agreement because, as the letter states, we remain hopeful that diplomacy will succeed in reversing Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon capability."

The letter was signed by Sens. Chuck Schumer of New York — the third-ranking Democrat in the Senate — Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Chris Coons of Delaware, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Joe Donnelly of Indiana.

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Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., left, sitting next to the committee&# …

A senior Senate staffer said there was broad consensus among Democrats that the administration be afforded a bit more time to come to a deal before approving more sanctions even though they would take effect only if no agreement is reached. The staffer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the issue.

Menendez made it clear, however, that he and his Democratic colleagues are not willing to hold off support for the bill forever. He said he remains deeply skeptical that Iran is committed to making the concessions necessary to demonstrate to the world that its nuclear program is exclusively peaceful by March 24.

"In my view, we need Iran to understand that there are consequences if they fail to reach a comprehensive agreement," Menendez said.

A senior administration official told reporters traveling with President Barack Obama that the administration welcomed the move, adding that it sent "a very constructive signal" that lawmakers understand Obama's arguments for waiting.

The Kirk-Menendez bill, which has not been formally introduced, would not impose any new sanctions during the remaining timeline for negotiations. A draft of the bill says that if there is no deal by July 6, the sanctions that were eased during negotiations would be reinstated. After that, sanctions would be stepped up every month.

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CodePink protestors, including co-founder Medea Benjamin, right, stand up on Capitol Hill in Washing …

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, the ranking Democrat on the committee, said the committee should delay Thursday's markup of the bill.

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said, however, that he would like to see an Iran sanctions bill on the Senate floor right away.

"It would be my hope to see bipartisan agreement protecting our national security with sufficient margins to override a veto," he said. "But right now, Senate Democrats seem to be focusing more on partisan politics than on the threats to our national security."

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Associated Press writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.